DAY 16 – DJENNE
SYNOPSIS: Exploring the UNESCO town of Djenne. About adobe construction, the mosque, and Koran schools. About village life and city comforts. About the total collapse of the tourism industry. About the internet or the lack of it. About taking charge of my new circumstances and making myself a “home”.
In my conversation over tea with Ishmael on the rooftop of my new home yesterday, I found out that I was stuck. My guidebook of 8 years ago was still talking about the hotel market in Djenné heating up, about hotels being built, about various luxury categories available, none of it is left!
This is not like Segou or Bamako, both provincial and state capitals respectively. Djenné was booming exclusively due to the tourism industry. Every single hotel that ever existed in town has closed. All that came with it, for example internet cafes, and more upscale restaurants, have all but disappeared. The locals could not afford them and the tourists stopped coming.
In other words, I either cut my stay short here or I am making the best of it. Perhaps, I bit off a bigger chunk than I can chew. But at least I want to give it a try. I told Ishmael that I paid his “brother” a lot of money for things he did not deliver and that I would need at least a few things today to make this work: 10 nails and a traditional floor mat. I also asked him to provide me with my own water bucket and the use of a hammer for 15 minutes. He delivered on all fronts.
I went to work cleaning my room and with the 10 nails and my travel clothes line, I created two “closets”. The nails provided various hooks for my backpack and scarves, and most of all, some atmosphere. My bogolan purchases in Segou came in handy, as well as my mosquito net. It really looks nice draped from the ceiling. In the next room I found a broken bed – its board now serves as a hanger for various things such as my bed sheet, towel, and sleeping bag, very much like a dresser. Now I have a room.
With a bucket of my own I can actually use the toilet and the “shower” when I need without having to disturb the non-English speaking population of the house – I am not their guest and they are not here to provide me with any necessities. I survived the first hot day – peak temperature today was over 40/105 degrees and in my room it was as cool as 32/90s. I do only a few things for a couple of hours, and then I rest and get out of the sun. A visit to that dreadful bathroom can provide a few minutes of cooling off by pouring “cold“ water over myself. The water is not as cold as one would hope, but it’s definitely less than 25/80 degrees. It feels cool. Yes, I can live this way for 5+ days and I will. Of course I can! I don’t know why I panicked yesterday. I am a spoiled brat after all…
Several hours went into making my home. A stroll through town this morning introduced me to the working methods of the famous Djenne masons who continue in the tradition of their forefathers with little more than a pickax and a few wicker baskets. That’s how all the adobe homes are built here. And that consistency alongside the most incredible mosque – the largest adobe structure in the world – gave this town its UNESCO status. The best thing about this new home is its location. I literally right now, sit on a roof top 100 yards away from that mosque and on the level with those famous turrets. That means that I am in earshot of the 4 AM and 4:45 AM call of the muezzin and the whole sermon, but I don’t mind. It is still a real muezzin who is calling via loudspeaker and so it is different each time with all of its charming imperfections, coughs, throat clearings, and the various muezzin personalities or perhaps, just moods during the day.
All of Djenne is Muslim but traces of animism can be found even here: There are animal horns sticking out above the door frames of some houses and the mosque is topped with ostrich eggs for protection. People have pet dogs here, they dance and do all sorts of things the Islamists, if they could get their hands on, would forbid or destroy. Yet, this Djenne is known to be one of the two most important centers of Islamic scholarship and learning. There are 42 Koran Schools or Madrasas here. Each has 20-40 students; kids who come from all over the country to learn the Arabic alphabet, who copy and memorize the entire Koran, and if I can believe Ishmael - will nonetheless leave the school not knowing what the Koran actually says, even though they have memorized the whole thing…! Understanding would require further schooling and learning the language rather than just the alphabet and only a few pupils ever move on to that level.
Today we passed a few of these Madrasas, but there was no class in session. We only observed some kids doing homework. Classes are held only twice a day for a couple of hours. In between, the kids work and help out with chores. Many were at one of the house construction sites I visited today. Others were catching fish by hand in the river which they can sell for some pocket money. I could not believe how good they were spotting and catching fish in what I would call completely murky puddles – we are after all only at the beginning of the rainy season.
By the end of the day I observed a street party – possibly connected to a wedding, where some drummers inspired some pretty darn good female dancers to go wild! There is nothing of that sort in Segou or Bamakou. Public live music performances, since they are typically drawing large crowds, are until further notice banned by the government. But Ishmael explained to me that Djenne is so remote and there is only one real access, across the river via ferry or boat – nobody unknown, no Islamists, can just sneak in here. The locals know each other and so they don’t fear any reprisals or attacks and continue doing what they have always done: celebrate, dance, sing and play music when an occasion moves them so. That remoteness is good security for me, too.
Ishmael tried his best today to get me internet access. There is one person in town Ishmael knows, with a laptop, but he had no time today. And there is one computer still working in one of the long shut-down former internet cafes. They opened up for me today and I spent over 1/2 hour – that was the time limit they gave me - trying to send one email. It took the first 10 minutes in vain to get Google and Firefox to recognize the WCC website. It took over 10 minutes for the WCC homepage to finally open on Explorer. And we waited for another 10 minutes for email to open. The 30 minutes were up and I had not even seen my inbox! That’s when I gave up. For the next 8 days in all likelihood, there will be no internet access. For this reason I actually gave myself some leeway – the blog is lagging behind the actual trip by a few days, but this leeway will seriously narrow if not be eaten up now. If you check in daily, you would be the first to notice the gap in posting.
The most beautiful hour of the day was this morning between 5:30 and 6:30 when I had woken up and could actually sit here on the roof top during daylight hours, enjoying the surroundings. Once the sun breaks through, the roof tops become like ovens. Now, after dark, I am up here again, but I can’t exactly see much of the town. But I do see sparse rows of street lighting and a few dimly lit interior rooms. Windows here are relatively small. No reason to let the heat come in. Electricity is available – in contrast to the villages I have visited – so I will be able to recharge my computer and my camera batteries regularly. But electricity is only available during certain hours of the day: 6 PM to 6 AM and 9 AM to 3 PM. One just has to work around that. Oh, and there are the unexpected cut outs of electricity. I have already experienced a few of those.
One other thing has to be counted among the luxuries of city life: Water is available in almost every household. That means laundry can be done in the home and people don’t have to go to the river to wash up – I know that I will find myself in the river doing that sooner or later, but that part of my trip is still ahead of me… Other than for the electric light, the water, and the fact that Djenne has about 20,000 inhabitants instead of 200, street life here unfolds very similarly to what I have seen in the villages: People pound millet, cook, wash, fetch well water, carry wood and babies around. Actually, there is at least one more: There are some stores here that sell not only cigarettes and items I cannot identify, but water, juices, and stuff and there is the daily small market – nothing like the Monday market – where you can buy stuff. The village does not have that. Each household is either self-sufficient or one has to travel to cities like Djenne on market days to shop for household items and all the other necessities of life.
I am glad for this experience which once again puts into perspective the ridiculously high expectations on life we as Westerners have developed. There is so much we don’t need – say I, sitting on this roof with a laptop which for the life of me I would not give up!
Good night.